The Regime Mini-series Review

The Regime (2024)
Mini-series - 6 episodes

Watch the trailer
Created by: Will Tracy
Starring: Kate Winslet, Andrea Riseborough, Hugh Grant, Martha Plimpton, Matthias Schoenaerts
Rated: TV-MA

Plot
The paranoid Chancellor of an unnamed Central European nation attempts to stop her authoritative regime from unraveling behind the palace walls.

Verdict
I like the idea of the common man propelled into the upper echelon of government and how that goes wrong as he doesn't have any experience in governing. It's a neat idea, but this show just isn't interesting. I keep wondering when this be funny. It seems inspired by Veep,  but this is both almost too outlandish yet boring. The biggest fault is that it's just not that funny. Each episode drags on as I just hope it ends soon. It doesn't have an overarching point. I want it to point out faults in thinking with regard to government, but it's not that ambitious.
Skip it.

Review
Chancellor  Elena Vernham (Kate Winslet), the leader of an European country recruits Herbert Zubak (Matthias Schoenaerts) for a job. Elena is peculiar, and it's quickly clear this show is some kind of satire. Her staff desperately tries to avoid upsetting her as she's preoccupied with humidity of all things. I get the attempt at comedy, but I don't see the satire. Winslet chews the scenery, but there's nothing else going on. Based on the first episode, I wouldn't return for a second. HBO has created great drama series, but the comedy and satire has been more difficult. While Veep was great, this show reminds me of the 2015 series The Brink which also attempted political humor unsuccessfully.

Kate Winslet plays Elena Vernham

The crux of the show is Elena acting erratically and Zubak encouraging her. I'm unclear what this show is really about or what it wants to be. The show highlights how wild Elena acts, but it never provides a reason why. Has she become out of touch and self absorbed to the point of rejecting basic facts she should know? Her advisors only want to placate her.  Since she begins listening to Zubak, her advisors begin appeasing him too.

I like the idea of this common man propelled into the upper echelon of government and how that goes wrong. It's a neat idea, the show just isn't interesting. I was waiting for episodes to end. I don't care about what happens to these characters or this show.

I wanted this to skewer politics and show the pitfalls of a dictatorship in comparison to the government with which we're familiar. It seems silly just to mask the lack of depth.

I hoped the last episode might be a half decent conclusion, but it's not. While it concludes the series it's more serious than the rest of the show. The final message seems to be that dictatorships will persist, the only thing that changes is who is calling the shots. This moved from Elena being in charge to a shadow government. That's a heavy topic for a show that started out as a comedy, though granted it was never very funny.